I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gelatin capsule of soft type containing medicine or the like, and more particularly to a novel gelatin capsule capable of containing powder or time release pellets as the content, and its manufacturing method and manufacturing apparatus.
II. Description of Related Art
Various gelatin capsules of soft type enveloping medicine or nutrient with soft gelatin in a form of capsule for the ease of king are sold on market. In manufacture of such gelatin capsule (in the specification, the gelatin capsule refers to the soft capsule hereinafter), molten gelatin is first formed into sheets, and the gelatin sheets are supplied into a pair of die rolls to be formed like a folder. The content such as medicine is supplied from above between them, the content spreads widely the sheets to form a pocket fitted to the inner circumference of the forming protrusions in the die rolls, and the forming protrusion sutures the periphery of the content in a fused state, thereby forming a gelatin capsule.
The present applicant acquired the patent by applying a "gelatin sheet forming apparatus in a gelatin capsule manufacturing apparatus" (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 5-88143; Japanese Patent No. 1876976) for the purpose of lowering the cooling cost of cooling drum and eliminating germs mixing into cooling air in a manufacturing apparatus of gelatin for manufacturing gelatin capsules in such manner. The present applicant also acquired the patent by applying an "adjusting apparatus in a manufacturing apparatus of gelatin capsule" (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 5-88144; Japanese Patent No. 1876977) for the purpose of facilitating adjustment of thickness of gelatin sheet and adjustment of compressed state of die rolls, and reducing waste of materials due to these adjustments occurring in the preparatory stage before start of production.
Furthermore, the present applicant acquired the patent by applying a "capsule taking-out apparatus in a manufacturing apparatus of gelatin capsule" (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 5-88145; Japanese Patent No. 1876978) for the purpose of adjusting and checking the scraping brush for die rolls and scraping brush for blank sheets separately from the die rolls, and therefore various problems of the conventional manufacturing apparatus of gelatin capsule have been solved, which contributes to presentation of more practical manufacturing apparatus of gelatin capsules.
Even in such gelatin capsules, however, the following problems are known, and further improvements are needed. That is, generally, as the content in this kind of gelatin capsule, only liquid or suspension containing powder appearing to be liquid by mixing powder in liquid was used, and when containing fine or granular powder or time release pellets, a hard capsule was used instead of soft capsule. But it is easier to take in the form of soft capsule than in the form of hard capsule, and for the purpose of protecting the contained medicine more safely, development of gelatin capsule containing powder has been proposed.
If attempted to contain powder or time release pellets actually in such gelatin capsule, it was hard to realize due to the following technical problems. That is, when manufacturing gelatin capsule, if the content is liquid, as shown in FIG. 15, liquid L supplied from a nozzle 84' pushes open the gelatin sheets S as indicated by arrow f to the inner circumference of forming protrusions 45' to suture a pair of gelatin sheets S, and relatively smooth manufacturing is realized. However, if the content is powder or time release pellets, the action for pushing open by the content is not expected as in the case of liquid L, and still worse if the pair of gelatin sheets S come closer to each other to narrow the peripheral space of the content, the powder or time release pellets may scatter about due to this effect, and may be adhered to the suture surface of gelatin sheets S, so that the sheets may not be sutured.